Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/1235208
for the latest info, visit https://www.ascpskincare.com/updates/blog-posts/coronavirus-and-your-practice 17 Evolutionary modeling has shown that patternicity is an ancient survival mechanism, based on the relative risk of potential outcomes depending on which pattern is believed. Not looking for patterns (and creating them where we can't find them) creates intolerable anxiety because of the degree of uncertainty, and therefore the potential perceived danger. For example, believing that the noise in my apartment corridor is a burglar when it is only my cat will prompt me to investigate. If I believe it is my cat and do nothing, I might be murdered in my bed. But if I believe it is a burglar and act on that, I have a fighting chance of survival, so thinking the worst "costs" me less than ignoring the noise. Compounded with other psychological and experiential factors, researchers in evolutionary biology have concluded that, in general, modern humans are not good at judging the relative probability of one scenario over another, and if we cannot understand the causes behind something, we will tend to "assign causal probabilities to all sets of events . . . lump[ing] causal associations with non-causal ones."5 Faced with a worldwide pandemic that has created this degree of disruption compounded by tons of data we are struggling to make sense of, our brains fall into the pattern of meaning-making and ascribing causality, with the added stimuli of fear and anxiety. The survival threat is real, and we have few tools at our disposal. We are being told to act in ways that feel unnatural, to self-isolate and abandon our jobs, our families, everything that forms our routine and identity. As we try to gain control over the situation, we search incessantly to satisfy burning questions even though we may not have the tools to interpret what we're looking at when we do find the research. Enforced isolation makes things worse; there is a sense of urgency, a need to communicate and share, to feel we are contributing in some way, to protect our own. On a grand scale, with the help of social media and instant communication, misinformation becomes widely held belief. If we are not conscious of our own thought and communication patterns, then instead of contributing to our survival, we are actually contributing to the problem. In such a climate, another key misconception can get in the way. This is the idea that science is all-powerful and that expert opinion—or what the media presents as expert opinion—is absolute. Surely if we go directly to the research, so readily available, we will understand more, be correctly informed, and be safer. Unfortunately, this is not the case: expertise is not the same as infallibility, and while scientists have knowledge and powerful tools at their disposal, there is also much that they do not know; as noted earlier, statistics are also prone to error. COMMUNICATION NOISE Any chain of communication, at its most basic, looks like the illustration below. Add a threat to survival, and the noise increases and the likelihood of accuracy decreases. Particularly when dealing with a threat involving disease and public health, those in positions of authority often stumble when attempting to communicate public health policy and complex medical information to the general public. Physical Noise Noise pollution (i.e., TV/kids/ pets, colleagues/traffic) Physiological Noise Fatigue/discomfort/ pain/too cold/too hot Psychological Noise Worries/assumptions/ stereotypes/bias Semantic Noise Jargon/choice of words/ unfamiliar ideas Sender/Encoder Receiver/Decoder Hi, here are the facts... Isolation Fear Misinformation Anxiety